Trip log, day one. Port Canaveral. Our first Disney Cruise!!!
3-Night Bahamian Cruise from Port Canaveral
June 16, 2005
Guests Onboard: 3:30 pm
Personal Navigator – Day 1
Unlike our other trip reports, this one is a bit different as it is a trip report being written nearly 15 years later. When the cruise lines shut down due to Coronavirus, I saw a tweet by Porthole Cruise that got me thinking – I should have some video footage from our first Disney Cruise. As luck would have it, there was some video on a MiniDV tape tucked away in a box and I was able to revive a 13 year old laptop with a FireWire port to import the video from the camera. Mind you, the video was simply just a short clip of our messy stateroom – see video later in this post. So, as much as I had hoped to share some old video from the Disney Wonder, the projected pivoted to why not write up a trip report using the clip as well as some really bad photos from the first digital camera we owned.
Our captain for this cruise is John Barwis. As for our onboard entertainment, Jacqui Perry is our Cruise Director. During this 3-night Bahamian cruise we will be visiting the ports of Nassau, and Castaway Cay.
This 3-night cruise was part of our honeymoon following our wedding at the Disney’s Wedding Pavilion on the grounds of the Grand Floridian. During our land-sea-land vacation we stayed at Caribbean Beach. During this trip we utilized the Magical Express service from MCO as well as ground transfers to and from Port Canaveral.
I recall our luggage being picked up at the hotel and we eventually met up and boarded one of the Disney Cruise Line busses outside Old Port Royale. We arrived at the cruise terminal in the afternoon, well after 1PM based on the timestamp of my first Disney Cruise photo.
I tweeted the cruise terminal photo and so many of you shared our first Disney Cruise photos. Go have a look at all those great memories!
One this in for sure, I didn’t take all that many photos during the cruise. Hey, it was 2005 and I was still rationing memory card space like it was 35mm film.
Looking at the photos, I was instantly hooked on the Dale Chihuly candler in the Disney Wonder’s atrium, remember, this was well before the re-imagination. Heck, the ship was just around 5 years old at the time.
Looking back on the time we boarded – after 2PM, we didn’t make it for an embarkation day lunch. Instead we went directly to our stateroom. On a bright note, it was great take our carry on luggage to the stateroom right away. Considering this was a land-sea-land vacation with a wedding, we had much more luggage than one would need for a 3-night cruise. Back then, the beds were not elevated so storing suitcases was not an easy task. We were staying in an inside stateroom on deck 7. From what I recall we got a slight upgrade as we booked the cheapest category that was available. Anyway, I cringe when I looked at the following video of our stateroom and saw the mess. Now, even on short cruises we unpack and put the suitcases under the bed. Well, here is the long awaited and overhyped stateroom video in glorious standard definition encoded and uploaded to YouTube in high definition.
Amazing video, right? Already received a number of thumbs down votes over on the YouTube!
Just going to assume we followed the rules and attended the muster drill prior to sailing away from Port Canaveral.
I have no recollection of attending the actual sail away party, but I do remember walking around on deck 10 was we sailed out of the port.
When we reached the open water, we returned to our room to get ready for dinner. I recall our first night was dinner at Palo which really goes against my recommendation of experiencing the main dinning rooms on your first cruise and adding in brunch if available. Then, on the second cruise pick a night and go to Palo. Someone told us to book dinner, maybe it was our Disney Wedding planner, I think her name was Jennifer. I remember dinner was excellent, but it did make things awkward the following night when Emily and I showed up for dinner seated with another family.
The funnels have always drawn my attention, and this was another one of my first photos taken.
As luck would have it, our stateroom 7625 was located on deck 7 aft, I do not recall the exact stateroom (turns out I had this information entered in My Cruise History), but it was very close to the aft deck which was removed years ago during the Classic ships’ re-imaginations. This little space offered a verandah experience while sailing in an inside stateroom. I remember heading out each morning to see whatever there was to see. Oh how I miss this spot.
After dinner we saw Hercules: The Muse-ical which allowed photography at the time, but I didn’t take any photos. All in all our first day aboard the Disney Wonder was best described as a whirlwind. Everything was so new, not only was this my first Disney Cruise, but it was also my first cruise. It was off to bed as we sailed towards our first stop, Nassau.
I noticed that there was no concierge lounge area wall in the photos too! Was concierge never part of the original Disney fleet?
No that area was not walled off back then. Hopefully with the renovation at the terminal and a dedicated concierge space addition, we could return to this open view of the ship.
Isn’t your stateroom number shown on your Castaway Club on the website? Mine are shown for all of my cruises. My first cruise was 2015, so maybe they don’t go back as far as 2005.
It was a simple case of being too lazy to look. However, I had it entered in My Cruise History.
The stateroom numbers do show up, our first cruise was in 2004 and the Castaway Club site shows all of our stateroom numbers, the ship, and the cruise.
Ah, the muster drills from years ago….when you had to wear your life vest!
Our honeymoon was a 4 night on the Wonder in October 2002. We stopped in Nassau, Freeport, and Castaway Cay.
I miss Hercules – the Muse-ical!! it was great!!